A woman suffered critical head injuries after falling from a height of around 20 feet from a moving electric-operated giant wheel at a fairground in Entally on Sunday night.
Priyanka Shaw, 26, had gone to Ramlila Maidan with a friend and fell off the rotating wheel around 8.45pm, police said.
“Her friends said she is afraid of heights. Apparently, she was panicking and lost grip on the handlebar on the seat and slipped out of the moving giant wheel,” said an officer of Entally police station.
The cage where Priyanka and her friend were sitting did not have any safety belt or latch, the officer said.
Kolkata Municipal Corporation officials said the fair organisers did not take the mandatory permission to install an electric-operated joy ride.
Priyanka, a resident of Ananda Palit Road in south Kolkata, was admitted to the NRS Medical College and Hospital on Sunday night. She will undergo surgery once she is stable, hospital officials said on Monday.
“The patient has suffered critical head injuries,” said an official of the hospital.
A friend who was at the hospital on Monday said Priyanka, elder of the two siblings, had completed graduation from a city college.
The family did not lodge any police complaint till Monday afternoon.
The police said a suo motu case had been started against the fair organisers, the owner of the giant wheel and the ride operator for alleged negligence.
A case has been initiated under IPC sections related to disobedience to order duly promulgated by public servant, negligent conduct with respect to machinery, causing grievous hurt to any person by rash and negligent act and common intention.
“We have arrested three persons. A probe is on to find out whether the organisers had the necessary permission from the KMC for installing the electronic giant wheel,” said deputy commissioner (eastern suburban division) Priyabrata Roy.
Debasish Kumar, mayoral council member-in-charge of parks and gardens, said the civic body had told the police that the organisers did not have the requisite permission to install an electric joyride.
The three behind bars are fair organisers Chittaranjan Saha and Mohammad Osman, and Baidyanath Bachar, who operated the giant wheel.
Residents around Ramlila Maidan — on Dr Lalmohan Bhattacharya Road in central Kolkata’s Entally — said the month-long fair is an annual affair on the occasion of Rath Yatra. This year, the fair started on July 1.
Following the accident, the giant wheel has been dismantled. The fair will continue.
In 2018, a five-year-old girl had fractured her skull after being flung off a pendulum swing boat at the Bhukailash fair ground in Kidderpore in southwest Kolkata.
In 2016, a woman died after a bucket seat of a joyride in Howrah’s Belilious Park came off and the woman was flung off.